For many American Indian citizens, especially those in rural reservation communities, a number of circumstances diminish the standard of living and the prospects for cultivating Native ways of knowing for a better future. One possible pathway to ensure that future is through a partnership between tribes, universities, and tribal colleges and universities (TCUs). Successful outcomes in such partnerships can motivate tribes to work alongside TCUs to increase tribal revenues. The authors offer the following as guidelines to engage in critical reflection, dialogue, and the production of transformative actions: (1) Building tribal organizational capacity that provide tribes with a wide range of powers to develop culturally responsive administration, new governance structures, and political bodies; (2) Policy self-examination that critically examines the mission, philosophy, goals, and organizational structure to determine if it is prepared, both philosophically and practically, to assume a partnership role that these relationships require; (3) Adhering to the government-to-government principle rather than government-to-dependent relations; and (4) Maximizing tribal control of programs to promote economic development and enhancing tribes' experience in the business of self-governance.